Wednesday night I had the honor of taking a fermentation class taught by none other than Sandor Ellix Katz, of Wild Fermentation fame! It was very cool, and I have never felt so jazzed about sauerkraut in my entire life. He talked about a lot of things from his book, and answered a lot of questions, including two of mine.

First, I asked him what’s the deal with yogurt recipes that recommend buying commercial yogurt to use as a basis for home yogurt-making. Basically, to make yogurt, you bring milk to a boil, then stir in a small amount of yogurt, then keep it at about 110 degrees F for at least 7 hours (up to 10). The bacteria in the yogurt you added multiply, and now you have a new batch.

Well, you would think “HEY! I never have to buy yogurt again” because you could just use a little of your previous batch to innoculate your next batch. But most of the recipes I have found say to buy a small container of commercial yogurt to innoculate your next batch.

People, we finally have an answer to this months-old question. Katz said that American commercial yogurt makers include strains of bacteria that do specific things, such as make the yogurt thicker and smoother. If you keep using the same batch over and over again, these strains will eventually get weaker and classic yogurt bacterias such as the acidophilus group get stronger. Your yogurt might end up being kinda runny and/or not have a great texture. It will still be good for you, just maybe not as pleasing in appearance and texture to our American palates.

As for myself, I’ve gotten into a rhythm with my yogurt-making that I think I will probably maintain despite this revelation. I buy a 6-oz container of Cultural Revolution yogurt for about $1.25 every time I go grocery shopping. It’s whole-milk and unflavored, and just the exact right amount, so that makes it really easy.

Since I started using this as an innoculant, and also switched to non-homogenized milk, my yogurt is definitely a little more runny. But we stir it up good, and add a little honey, and it is delicious!

The other question I was going to ask, but didn’t have to because he covered it anyway, was what is the deal with covering fermenting kimchi/kraut/etc.? You may remember from my last post about making kimchi that I was super confused about this.

Well, the deal with fermenting foods is this: because it has been done in so many different places for SO long (pre-dating the written word, for Pete’s sake), there are many “right” ways to do this stuff. If you’re making a small amount, like the recipe I posted that made 1 qt, you can just put the standard canning lid on, as long as you make sure you open it at least once a day to let out accumulated pressure, and press down your veggies manually.

Or you can do like we did and put a piece of cloth on top so that air can get out but flies can’t get in. OR you can weight the kraut/kimchi down with a heavy weight to hold the veggies under the surface of the liquid (this is more of a classic method and works especially well when you’re making very large amounts). The gist is: there are multiple right ways, and worst-case-scenario if you get it wrong is that it might not taste super awesome. But even that is a matter of individual preference. You also might get scums/molds, but they are not dangerous and easily dealt with. The powerful good-for-you enzymes will annihilate any bad bacteria that might find its way in, so things like botulism simply aren’t an issue.

The right amount of time for fermenting is also wide open. He said it could be 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, or 3 years depending on the temperature of your house and how sour you like your kraut. We fermented our first kimchi for about a week, during pretty warm weather, and it got real sour. Our second batch we only fermented for about 3-4 days before moving it into the fridge. Upon tasting it a couple times, it seemed a little too salty and not sour enough for me so I got it back out last night to get going again. I’ll probably put it back in the fridge tomorrow.

He also talked about all kinds of fun and exciting things like making mead, which we are going to try shortly here now that our one glass carboy is freed up from the beer-making that Adam and his brother were doing last month.

So if you’re still reading (which would really surprise me) you might be wondering “what’s the deal with fermented foods anyway?” Why are they so good for us? Several reasons. For one, humans consumed them in large quantities, for millennia. It’s only in the last 50-100 years that we gave up these rich sources of B vitamins, beneficial enzymes and probiotics.

Secondly, just at the precise moment when we gave these up, we also started an all-out assault on bacteria on two fronts: first, and most importantly, we started giving antibiotics in large quantities to meat animals which we then eat. All these excess antibiotics build up in our food, our water, and our bodies, creating a beautiful, bacteria-free blank slate on which new harmful bacterias can grow and proliferate.

So we’re getting sicker, and more often. And how do we deal with that? Exactly the opposite of how we should: with antibacterial soaps and prescription antibiotics.

Now more than ever our bodies need good bacteria on our side, and eating fermented foods is a really great (and delicious) way to accomplish that. Do I sound like a true believer or what?! I was so jazzed that I came home and ate a big bowl of kimchi right after the class.

Slice zucchini and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Leave rest while you prepare the other ingredients:

In a large saute pan heat olive oil and butter over medium heat, add onion and cook until soft. Turn off heat and add garlic, red pepper, and parsley:

In a large bowl mix together the yogurt cheese, 1/2 of the mozzarella, 1/2 of the parmesan, eggs, red pepper mixture, and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Assemble in a 9×13 cake pan. Start by spreading 1/4 of the pasta sauce an the bottom of the pan, sprinkle 1/4 of the bread crumbs, cover with 1/3 of the zucchini slices and 1/2 of the red pepper cheese filling. Repeat (sauce, bread crumbs, zucchini, red pepper mixture, sauce, bread crumbs, zucchini). Cover with the remaining sauce and bread crumbs, and the remaining mozzarella and parmesan cheeses. I then added some fresh basil and oregano and another pinch of salt and pepper to the very top. Bake at 350 covered for 20 min., uncover and bake for an additional 10 min. (or until cheese starts to brown). Let stand for 10-15 min. to set.I baked this one on the grill, because I hate turning on the oven in the summer. Just make sure you don’t have the flame directly under the lasagna.

*Yogurt CheesePour plain yogurt into a colander lined with 2 layers of cheese cloth and let drain into a bowl for 2-6 hour (or overnight). The result is a nice thick cheese like yogurt. Use in place of cream cheese or ricotta.

I guest-posted on Star Tribune’s greengirls blog today… my friend Jaime is one of the writers and she’s on her honeymoon so I offered to guest-post for a day. I’m hoping that their very-engaged audience will help me figure out where I can buy some perennial vegetables for my 2010 garden. Read the post here.

It was about time I updated the header to reflect more of what’s going on around here right now, at the height of a glorious Minnesota summer. Left to right: Rowan picking strawberries, my raspberry hedge, my hollyhock/strawberry/asparagus area next to the rain barrel, a ginger bug, and Anneke eating an onion.

I have a new batch of ginger beer that is very close to being done, but I am going to hold back on posting about it until I know for sure whether it was a success or not. We did make it to the bottling stage this time; but we tasted it last week and it was still very flat. Will try it again soon.

In the meantime, check out this blog, The Simple Green Frugal Co-op. It’s my new favorite, so much useful information and updated frequently by a group of different writers. I also added their RSS feed to the right of this page so you can I can see what they’re up to at all times.

Look at this neat visitor that we had in our garden yesterday! We think it was most likely a “Tiger Swallowtail,” according to our insect book.

That is not a lemon! It’s a cucumber. I planted an heirloom variety this year called Boothby Blonde cucumers, that get kinda fat and yellow. They are absolutely delicious. The flavor is very delicate and sublime. They definitely don’t taste like a supermarket cucumber (which to me, tastes like water with skin).

Finally, a goof. I neglected to check on my zucchini plants for at least 4 days, and look what happened. GIANTIFIC zucchinis. Not even sure if these are edible anymore. I put them in the fridge, and Adam is talking about making a zucchini lasagna where he’ll use slices of these (sliced the long way) instead of lasagna noodles.